


Hold Tight To My Hand, I'll Support You All The Way

by Lazchan



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-07
Updated: 2017-06-07
Packaged: 2018-11-10 01:49:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11117361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lazchan/pseuds/Lazchan
Summary: Mari knows her brother is stronger than he seems, but sometimes she needs to see it for herself.





	Hold Tight To My Hand, I'll Support You All The Way

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sour_Idealist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sour_Idealist/gifts).



> This is only one of the fics that I have planned! <3 You will be getting others, but this one came to me first. :D Be on the lookout for more fics that are in your request list.

Mari knocked on her brother’s door, soft and in the old code that they had used when they were kids. She wondered if Yuuri would remember such a small thing, but it was only a few moments before he slid open the door to his room, giving her a tentative smile. 

 

“Mari-nee-chan.” HIs voice was quiet and she settled in his desk chair while he went back to his bed. She looked around his room, whistling softly. The walls were completely bare, not even scraps of what had been there before remained.  “Wow, so you get the real thing and you took down all your posters that fast?” she asked. “I remember you hounding me to take you to special events to get some of those.”

 

“I didn’t get rid of them,” Yuuri’s face turned red. “I just-- I didn’t want Viktor comin in here and seeing all those posters. It’s a little… strange, right?” he asked, voice hesitant. “If you walked in someone’s room and saw your face plastered over the walls.” Of course, the Viktor in real life wasn’t anything like the media or the pictures showed him to be and even Mari was a little taken back by the obvious difference in the two personas. 

 

“He might be flattered that you’re such a big fan,” she said instead, watching him carefully. “Or maybe he’s a fan of yours,” she said lightly. She had her own thoughts on Viktor and she wasn’t sure how to voice them, especially with the despondent look her little brother was wearing at the moment. “He did fly all the way out to Japan to track down  _ you _ , Yuuri.”

 

“Because of that video,” Yuuri his his face in his pillow and while his words were muffled, she knew her brother well enough to pick them out. “I was surprised he didn’t lecture me over how bad it was or how I can do better or ask me why I’m even skating.” He lifted his face to hers and she was unsurprised to see the start of tears. “Instead he said he wanted to be my  _ coach _ . The Living Legend takes a season off to train me? There has to be a trick.”

 

“Yuuri,” she sighed and moved over to sit next to him on the bed. “Is it because of what he said over dinner?” she asked, “or is it everything that’s happened over the past couple of months?” She kept her voice carefully controlled; he would clam up at the first sign of pity.

 

The straightforward tone did the trick. When he opened his mouth to reply, it was with honesty instead of deflection, even if it broke her heart to hear how sad he sounded. 

 

“A little of both, I think,” he said, his gaze moving back down to the pillow in his lap. “I mean-- I think I’m still trying to process everything,” he said honestly. “I -- I got over being upset over my bad skating, but--” he flushed. Coming back to Vicchan’s collar and leash; a picture of his dog instead of the real thing had hit home. It wasn’t until that moment that he truly realized that had lost something irreplaceable and close to his heart. “I didn’t think that having my video of skating Viktor’s routine would affect anyone else but me.” 

 

“When I saw you skating that, I was impressed.. You know that we’ve all followed your skating from since you were first trying out what to do when you were six/ When you and still did ballet together before we went on our different paths. I never saw you happier than when you were skating. I think other people saw how happy you were, too. Just… letting go and skating for-- it was for Yuuko, right?” she asked. He nodded, but his expression was still tense. 

 

“I-- but--” he stared down at his hands. “Everyone saw how fat I had gotten. Even… even Minako-sensei and Viktor.” He didn’t mention their parents, but they hadn’t really said it out loud and they would never say it was a bad thing. “I didn’t look like a figure skater.” He moved slightly and she saw the posters carefully stacked together, sitting next to him on the bed. 

 

She hummed slightly, trying to collect her words. “You always were hard on yourself,” she wrapped an arm around his shoulder. “I saw that skate,” her mouth quirked up slightly. LIke he had said, the whole skating world had seen that skate. “You skated with more emotion than you have in a long time. You had a lot pent up, hm?” she asked. 

 

He made a face at that. “Yeah, but there’s a difference in using emotion on the ice from personal issues and using it to make a routine work. You saw the text that came with that video being shared. I ‘tried’ to skate Viktor’s routine. Out of shape Yuuri, skating the routine of the man that’s won five consecutive gold medals and holds three world records for skating.” 

 

“I don’t care about appearances. You skated with whatever little weight you gained. It’s not as bad as you think it is-- or what that Viktor implied.” Her eyes narrowed faintly. She wanted to have a talk with Viktor about poor word choices, but her English wasn’t as strong as Yuuri’s was. She trusted Yuuri to have his own words with Viktor. Idol or not, Yuuri wasn’t a pushover and would assert himself-- eventually. Ever when Nishigori had teased him when he was a child, pushing him on the ice and calling him names, Yuuri had been upset, but retaliated in creative ways.

 

She smiled to herself as she remembered days of enlisting her help to put squishy items in the bottoms of Nishigori’s skates for weeks on end. 

 

“He said I couldn’t skate until I lost weight,” he said finally and she blinked at that, considering the words, interested. 

 

“He’s really serious about making sure  _ you’re _ serious,” she said finally. “Yuuri, didn’t Minako say the same thing when you were training?” she asked. “When we started the tradition of no katsudon until you won a competition?” It had been a hard one to make; even since he was a kid, his favorite dish had been katsudon, but making the prize be his favorite dish made Yuuri work all the harder for it. “What do you love more than even katsudon right now?”

 

“Skating,” he said immediately, no hesitation in his voice and then he smiled a little as he got what she was saying. “So you’re saying that me being kept off the ice until I get back into shape is the new katsudon?”

 

“Oh, we’re still going to keep that katsudon rule,” she poked his side and smirked at him. “It works so well to motivate you and mom dusts off your trophy case every day to make sure that guests can see how well you’ve done. She’s planned a whole new shelf for what you’ll do next.” There was no hesitation in her tone, either-- she believed that Yuuri could do even more than he had before.

 

She got up slowly, patting his shoulder now that he seemed to be in a better frame of mind and the steady look of determination was back on his face. He looked up at her and gave her a real smile. “Thanks, ‘nee-chan,” he said softly. 

 

She gave him a tiny smile in return as she left him alone with his new train of thought. It was still going to be a struggle for him, but he had a goal in mind, now that he was treating being ‘allowed’ to skate again as a goal. She knew that he could have completely ignored VIktor’s ruling and gone skating anyway, but she knew he wouldn’t. He was going to work hard to ‘earn’ his spot back to where he was always meant to be. 

 


End file.
